How is this different than GamerGate's MUH BIAS screeching about "Gamer is Dead"?
...oh right, this time its someone you like.
Its the populist instinct. If something goes wrong it must be collusion.
Well all claims of media bias can be reduced to "muh bias" if you like that sort of thing, it doesn't follow that all claims about media bias have equal weight or similar motivations behind them. It also doesn't follow that media bias doesn't exist because spurious claims about media bias exist.
Lets look and see if this horseshoe theory of Trump and Sanders doing exactly the same thing holds water.
Sanders: “I talk about that all the time and then I wonder why the Washington Post, which is owned by Jeff Bezos, who owns Amazon, doesn’t write particularly good articles about me,” Sanders, who is among the leaders in a crowded field of Democratic hopefuls, said Monday. “I don’t know why. But I guess maybe there’s a connection. I guess maybe we helped raise the minimum wage at Amazon to 15 bucks an hour, as well. Maybe that’s why the Washington Post is not endeared to me. I don’t know.”
He is insinuating that Amazon's opposition to the minimum wage might have fueled antipathy towards Sanders in the WP. Well, it might not have helped but the WP were never fans of Sanders.
Here's Trump on the media: "The fake news, of which many of you are members, is trying to convince the public to have a recession. 'Let's have a recession.'"
Here Trump is also insinuating that the media has an agenda, lots of media outlets-all together have an agenda to bring about a national recession for reasons.
Qualitatively, the two positions are not the same. Yes both insinuate an agenda, yes neither have shown a 'smoking gun' or 'proof' that media outlets have an institutional bias but one claim posits that multiple outlets have a bias for reasons that are completely unclear in order to bring about a concrete goal that doesn't seem like it would benefit them. The other claims a singular media outlet has a particular bias for a clearly stated reason that aligns with the CEOs personal interests. Whether either claim has merit isn't the issue, as with most "both sides" arguments when looking at the left and the right on closer examination the thing that "both sides" are purported to be doing isn't the same thing.
Recent Posts